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It was perhaps his most outlandish claim on the campaign trail, yet one Donald Trump repeated as he was seeking to win back his old job as president of the United States: He can resolve the war in Ukraine in a single day.
"They're dying, Russians and Ukrainians. I want them to stop dying. And I'll have that done — I'll have that done in 24 hours," Trump asserted over the summer.
Now with Inauguration Day a week away, his ambitions are a lot less grand. And rightly so: Anybody who seriously believed Trump could quickly resolve Europe's deadliest conflict in nearly eight decades was drinking the Kool-Aid.
Trump and his national security advisers are instead looking at a monthslong process to get Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table. Keith Kellogg, Trump's special envoy to the war, is aiming to get something done in 100 days. Trump, meanwhile, told reporters he'd like to have the war settled in the first six months.
Good luck.
The optimist in me would like to give Trump the benefit of the doubt that he will exhibit the toughness, boldness and creativity required to terminate a war that has resulted in more than 1 million casualties and hundreds of billions of dollars in damage.
But the realist in me thinks such a scenario, while not impossible, is unlikely given the stakes involved for both parties, the animus that has grown between them after nearly three full years of combat and the prevailing dogma in Washington that any compromise with Putin will be the modern-day equivalent of pulling a Neville Chamberlain in Munich in 1938.
The first step, bringing Ukrainian and Russian officials into a room, won't be easy. Outside of prisoner exchanges, there have been no direct negotiations between the two sides since early 2022, when attempts to resolve the war peacefully collapsed courtesy of Ukrainian military gains, the Russian atrocities in Kiev's suburbs and messaging in the West that Ukraine ought to hold out for a better deal.
Putin and Zelensky have talked hypothetically about a settlement since then, but their terms — Putin wants Ukraine to drop its NATO aspirations and recognize Russia's illegal annexation of four Ukrainian provinces in the east, whereas Ukraine wants Russian troops off every inch of Ukrainian land — remain irreconcilable. Although Zelensky has been more receptive to diplomatic options as the Ukrainian army has lost ground, he is no less interested in a Russian defeat today than he was when the war started.
Trump's advisers have floated a formula to get both sides to the table. If Ukraine doesn't agree to negotiate, then the United States will stop supplying the Ukrainian army with weapons. And if Russia doesn't agree to negotiate, then Washington will flood weapons into Ukraine to entice Putin to change his mind. In essence, Trump's proposed formula is an attempt to coerce both sides into cooperating with his peace push.
The problem, however, is that such a gambit isn't likely to work. For instance, if Trump stops all weapons shipments to Ukraine, then Putin would have no incentive to negotiate and will bet that his army can steamroll Ukrainian defensive positions as Kiev is starved of ammunition. In fact, it would be illogical for Putin not to do so. Why compromise on core issues when you can reclaim more territory and establish a fait accompli through force of arms?
There's a similar problem on the other side. If Putin refuses Trump's offers and the Ukrainians start receiving a stronger flow of arms from Washington, then what incentive does Zelensky have to hold off on another counteroffensive in the east? While there's an assumption that renewed Ukrainian military pressure would eventually compel Putin to negotiate a truce, the past demonstrates the exact opposite — whenever the Russians have been forced to withdraw, Putin has responded by doubling down on the war, not desperately searching for an off-ramp. Why would this time be any different?
Assuming the sides enter a formal diplomatic process, the real work begins. Zelensky and Putin at this point are highly distrustful of each other, and both are worried that an immediate cease-fire would give the other side an opportunity to rest for another offensive.
Even if the Ukrainians would be willing to sign a truce, it's unlikely they would do so without concrete security guarantees against Russian violations. While security guarantees sound nice, they also present new issues. Would Putin be willing to accept them? And what would those security guarantees look like?
The former is important because while Putin doesn't have a veto over Ukrainian foreign policy, he does have a veto over whether the war ends. The latter creates a whole different set of negotiations between the United States and its European allies about what a security guarantee would consist of, whether European troops would be deployed to Ukraine and, if so, which countries would be expected to contribute forces.
None of this even begins to cover the main disputes that have powered the war from the start. Trump will need to find some way of splitting the baby between getting a fair peace for Ukraine and ensuring Russia's security concerns are met. The two are inherently in conflict, which means at least one side of the table is bound to walk away from the talks unhappy.
Reality has a way of smacking you hard in the face. It's no different for the leader of the free world.
Previously:• 12/31/24
• 12/31/24 How will Syria evolve under new leadership?
• 11/14/24 How will Trump handle the war in Ukraine?
• 11/04/24 Is there really an 'axis of evil' set on destroying the US?
• 11/30/23 What will happen after the Israel-Hamas truce expires?
• 11/09/23 Pessimism is growing in Ukraine. Has the war with Russia reached a stalemate?
• 10/26/23 Biden's geopolitical equivalent of a high-wire act --- and success is by no means assured
• 10/12/23 How will the Israel-Hamas conflict affect US policy?
• 10/05/23 As the war in Ukraine grinds on, Europe will prove more crucial
• 09/18/23 The US and Vietnam should boost their relationship. China looms large
• 08/24/23 Zelensky's shiny, new toys and yet --- racking-up losses
• 08/17/23 The US is negotiating with Iran to release prisoners. Here's why that matters
• 08/03/23 What should the US do to normalize ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia?
• 06/09/23 Do we face nuclear confrontation? The erosion of agreements has heightened the risk
• 06/01/23 Why is the Defense Department immune from budget cuts?
• 05/18/23 Policy is at a crossroads in a deeply troubled Afghanistan
• 05/12/23 The US war on terror continues. We just don't talk about it
• 05/05/23 The US and world were naive about Sudan leaders' commitment to democracy
• 03/20/23 China gets the credit for improving Iran-Saudi Arabia ties --- but the US benefits
• 02/23/23 The first year of war in Ukraine has defied predictions
• 02/07/23 How does the US-China relationship continue after the spy balloon saga?
• 12/29/22 Why does the US defense budget continue to grow? America's approach needs rethinking
• 12/22/22 Ever so slowly, the nations are realigning
• 12/22/22 China is pushing a pacifist Japan into building up its military capabilities
• 12/09/22 Mideast country is putting US in a tough spot by threatening another Syria incursion
• 10/13/22 Don't underestimate the durability of autocracies
• 09/22/22 Is there still hope for a new Iran nuclear deal?
(COMMENT, BELOW)
Daniel DePetris
Chicago Tribune/(TNS)
Daniel R. DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities, a foreign policy think tank based in Washington, D.C., and a syndicated foreign affairs columnist for the Chicago Tribune.